iRobot's best known for the robots that clean your living room, not robots that clean crippled nuclear reactors. But they leant a hand to Japan's infamously infirm power plant for some very, very messy work.

The company sent four of their Warriors, ass-kicking, heavy-lifting robots made for hauling rather than dusting. Slap on some improvised vacuum cleaners, and you've got a decent way to get rid of radioactive sand and gunk that caked the plant's interior post-tsunami. And, you know, they won't get radiation poisoning in the process. As awful as the Fukushima crisis continues to be, perhaps a silver lining lies in our newfound faith in robots to clean up after our horrible human fuckups. [via IEEE Spectrum]